


Dying Embers

by Terrantalen



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 18:30:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16522391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terrantalen/pseuds/Terrantalen
Summary: Molly is interested... And Caleb has finally noticed.





	Dying Embers

Caleb sat somewhat slumped by the dying light of the fire that was slowly burning out in the common room. The barkeep had retired an hour earlier, leaving the Mighty Nein alone to celebrate. One by one, his companions had crept off to bed, in varying states of drunkenness, until it was only he and Mollymauk left. Molly spun his cup on the tabletop and stared into the fire.

“You know,” Molly said, “you’re an incredibly difficult person to flirt with?”

Caleb looked up from his book, a flush already blossoming on his cheeks, “I didn’t realize… uh, wait, why would you flirt with me?”

Molly’s face was lit with a mischievous smile that only deepened as he said, “Because I like you, and I want you to know that I like you.”

“Oh.”

Caleb looked back down at his book, squirming a little under Mollymauk’s continued scrutiny. He willed his eyes to look across the page, tried to absorb the words he normally found so engrossing. They were nonsense.

“Don’t look so worried, I don’t bite,” Molly took a sip of his drink, “Unless you ask me to.”

Caleb laughed nervously, “Ja, okay.”

His mind flitted through a hundred different scenarios, each thought chased by a complicated series of chain reactions that led him precisely nowhere. The truth, if Caleb admitted it, was that he liked Mollymauk too. He’d just never considered that the tiefling might like him in return. How could he? Caleb was perhaps less dirty and mangy than the day they first met, but he still didn’t exactly maintain himself. True, Molly seemed to mind the dirt less than anyone except for Nott, but still. Caleb had seen himself in a mirror, recently, and there wasn’t much to be attracted to. Especially when Mollymauk looked like some purple wet-dream come to life.

Caleb wanted to respond, somehow, but he was frozen. It was surely better to say nothing in any case. Don’t get involved, be ready to break away at any moment, hide yourself. That was the advice that he gave himself, nearly daily. The person who might have returned a flirtatious glance to Molly was dead. He didn’t deserve what was being offered. He kept still.

“Anyway,” Molly said, interrupting the endless swirl of self-loathing thoughts, “I just wanted to put my cards on the table.”

Caleb nodded. Molly drained his drink and began to stand, “Why?” Caleb asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Why what?”

Caleb shook his head, “Nothing. Sorry.”

Molly sat back down, “You’re not so bad, you know. I know you think that you’re… that there’s something wrong with you, but, I promise, there’s not. Whatever happened, it’s not worse than anything that any one of us has done.”

“You don’t know what it is that I did,” Caleb closed his book with a snap, “You wouldn’t say that if you did.”

“Maybe I don’t know that, but I do know something else. You, as you are now, today. You are a good person. The person you were, you’re right, I don’t know that person. Maybe he was awful. I also don’t know the person I was three years ago. But, I have a guess that he was probably awful. There’s nothing wrong with leaving your past where it belongs: in the past.”

“But I could fix it. I need to fix it.”

“Maybe for you, but not for me. I like you now, with your books, and your quiet jokes, and your messy hair, and your weird laugh.”

“But I’m a liar,” Caleb said, his voice nearly breaking, “I… Mollymauk, you should hate me.”

Molly shrugged, “Well, I don’t. I can’t. You’ve saved my life too many times for that.”

Caleb stared at the dark surface of the table in front of him. He rubbed the smooth tabletop nervously. Strangely, he was reminded of a time when, as a boy, he’d been swimming with his friends. The water of the lake was mysterious and black, and Caleb had watched as, one by one, his friends leapt from the dock and splashed down into the cold, dark water. They laughed and splashed and called for him to jump too, but Caleb had stood on the dock, too worried to jump.

There had been stories about that lake. Stories of giant catfish that could swallow a boy whole, that would swoop up from the murky bottom like great leviathans of legend. He considered the likelihood of the stories being true. They probably weren’t. But what if they were? He was small, as a boy. Smaller than the rest of his friends. The right size for a tasty snack for a catfish.

“C’mon,” he remembered them yelling, “Jump!”

Only he didn’t. His father had called him and he’d taken the opportunity to wave to his friends and run away. Maybe the boy who was brave enough to jump would have been brave enough to question his orders. Maybe, sometimes, jumping before thinking was necessary.

“This is a mistake,” he said softly, “A really, really big mistake,” he leaned across the table and Molly met him half-way, their kiss made awkward by the barrier between them; even so, electricity danced across his skin as Molly’s tongue teased his lips apart.

Molly climbed up onto the table and pressed Caleb backwards as he broke their kiss to say, “Possibly.”

Caleb looked up at him, “No, pretty much definitely,” he said as Molly slid onto Caleb’s side of the table and straddled him. Molly rested his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. He ran his fingers through Caleb’s hair and, with the other hand, traced Caleb’s jawline. “Almost one hundred percent," Caleb added breathily.

Molly shrugged, “Well, I don’t care, if you don’t,” he kissed Caleb again. Heat pooled undeniably in Caleb’s groin and Molly ground his own hardness against him. Caleb tugged Molly’s shirt out of his pants, his hands desperate to touch naked skin. The muscles of Molly’s back corded and tensed as Caleb’s touch quested across his shoulders. He felt Molly’s tail lash around his waist and pull him even closer, as Molly reached down between them to palm Caleb’s hardness. Molly’s fingers were looking for the laces of Caleb’s pants and Caleb groaned.

“Wait,” he said, “We should… I mean, upstairs, ja?”

“Right,” Molly said, “Of course. Which room?”

Caleb cursed in Zemnian, “Neither. Fjord and Nott… I’m not ready for anyone to know, about this.”

“Washroom?” Molly suggested, “There’s a lock.”

Caleb nodded. Molly unwound himself from Caleb, and Caleb was strongly tempted to pull him back into his lap, damn the risk, as he saw the strain of Molly’s cock against his trousers. Molly offered him his hand and Caleb took it, unable to resist pulling Molly into another kiss.

His arms wrapped around Molly’s waist, and Caleb followed Molly backwards until the tiefling bumped back into the bar, a pair of stools screeching out of his way. There was not a spare inch of space between them as Molly wrestled Caleb’s coat onto the floor. There was so much of Molly to touch, Caleb realized, as he snaked his hand between them, down Molly’s stomach, following the faint trail of hair, to Molly’s cock, “I am becoming concerned,” Molly said, with a slight hitch in his voice, “That we may not make it upstairs.”

Caleb laughed, a low, easy chuckle, “Eh, fuck it.”

Molly tugged his shirt over his head, the tiefling’s lilac skin gleamed in the firelight. His tattoos formed a dark and inviting path downward, but Caleb chose the other unadorned side of his neck and shoulder to kiss down. He pressed Molly’s hips back into the bar as his fingers struggled with the buttons of Molly’s pants.

The last button finally snapped free and, with a small hum of delight, Caleb shoved Molly’s pants off his hips. The sight of Molly’s cock, already slightly slick, sent a sympathetic pulse of heat and desire to Caleb’s own intensely hard cock. Caleb took Molly into his mouth and slid down to his knees, gently working Molly’s shaft with his hand in time with his mouth.

Molly moaned and Caleb increased the speed of his stroke. He wanted to feel Molly come for him, he wanted to taste him. Molly’s muffled cry was accompanied by pulse after pulse of semen. Caleb drank it down greedily until Molly was done. He looked up at the tiefling from his spot on the floor.

Molly’s eyes were hazy with pleasure but he smiled wickedly at Caleb just the same. Molly pulled him to his feet and deftly reversed their positions so that Caleb was pressed against the bar. He kissed slowly, lazily along Caleb’s throat. The lassitude of his release filled all of his motions as he popped button after button free from Caleb’s shirt, and unlaced Caleb’s pants. Molly’s touch was gentle and steady as he traced Caleb’s chest and trailed a thumb to Caleb’s nipple. Caleb gasped as Molly circled it with his thumb. Molly teased him with his fingers and then his tongue, and then, gently, his teeth, until Caleb was sure he would orgasm, just from the tiefling’s hot mouth as it sucked and pulled on his nipples.

“Mollymauk,” Caleb said, shakily, “I…” he didn’t remember what he meant to say as Molly grasped Caleb’s cock. His thumb swirled over the tip, collecting the precum and sliding it down toward the base. Molly’s mouth dipped down to Caleb’s hardness and he licked up the underside of Caleb’s cock, his spit and Caleb’s precum creating a slick film that Molly used to pump him with. His mouth returned to Caleb’s nipple, the combined electricity of both touches proving too much. Caleb came with a yelp that Molly muffled with a kiss.

He leaned fully into Caleb, their bodies in contact everywhere. For the second time that day, Caleb felt himself in danger of crying. It was too much, the intimacy of Molly holding him. Molly kissed his cheek, "It's alright," he said softly, "I'm here."

Molly stroked his hair and combed it back from Caleb's face with his fingers. He kissed Caleb gently on the forehead, an echo of the first time he'd kissed him, after the manticore. Caleb relaxed into him and leaned his head against Molly's shoulder. 

It was a mistake, and Caleb knew it, but at that moment, he didn't care.


End file.
